By Guest Contributor, on August 29th, 2015 Posted on behalf of Black Lives Matter DMV
These next 3 weeks are going to be very busy for the Movement for Black Lives here in DC. We get a lot of asks about how to get involved in the movement and the short answer is show up! At almost every event there is an announcement of the next one. Show up, meet people, move up when people call for support, bring your friends to the next one. The movement for Black Lives is beautifully diverse and fundamentally a call for ending all forms of oppression because Black people are affected by them all. It is a call for collective liberation so there is a place and a role for everyone. There are also places set aside just for Black people. If you are not Black, don’t be offended if you see *this is a Black Only Space* and respect the intentions for the space. Know that there are plenty other spaces that could use your talents and energy. We need thousands of collaborators to build the next stage of the movement. #GetInWhereYouFitIn
0. Read the Guiding principles:
http://wellexaminedlife.com/…/movement-for-black-lives-gui…/
1. Come to Trans Liberation Tuesday 8/25/15
Support #BlackTransWomen. Stop the violence and the silence
https://www.facebook.com/events/895465170508465/
2. Come to the Black Lives Matter Spokescouncil Wednesday 26th
This is great place for join the movement, meet people and see what you or your organization can contribute.
https://www.facebook.com/events/121364371543545/
3. Come to the “Week” of Action. September 1st-11th.
The BLM Spokescouncil will be hosting nearly two weeks of action throughout the beginning of September. Keep your eyes open.
4. Follow Black Lives Matter DMV
https://www.facebook.com/BLACKLIVESMATTERDMV
And sign up to their list here: http://www.blacklivesmatterdmv.org/join-the-movement/
5. Follow Stop Police Terror Project DC
https://www.facebook.com/stoppoliceterrorprojectdc?fref=ts
SPTP [DC]’s shut down’s and rallies are great places to learn more about the movement and meet people who are involved.
6. Join or Support Black Youth Project [BYP] 100.
http://byp100.org/
BYP 100 is a national organization with chapters in cities across the country. BYP is on the front lines of the movement for Black Lives, working to end state sanctioned violence against Black people through a Black Queer Feminist Lens.
7. Join a solidarity group.
Visit the Washington Peace Center’s solidarity page for links and contacts for various BLM Solidarity Groups in DC.
http://www.washingtonpeacecenter.org/node/15405
8. Radical Structural Change, like Radical Cultural Change, takes time and masses of people. The #struggleisreal as is spiritual and emotional trauma. Take care of yourself, take care of your friends, take care of your community and keep coming out! #StayWoke
— with Helga Herz and 4 others.
By Guest Contributor, on August 18th, 2015 Cross-Posted from the DC Independent Media Center
Written by Luke
On the 15th of August, Blackout DC staged what was announced as a march from the White House to the Capitol to protest police murder of Black and Brown people.
 Cops expected a direct march but got a surprise! The march diverted from Pennsylvania Ave, north up 7th Street to Chinatown, then proceeded east to block the I-395 tunnels before finally going to the US Capitol. At the Capitol, offerings for those murdered by police were placed in a cardboard coffin. This was intended to take place on the Capitol steps, but US Capitol police blockaded the top exits from the Capitol West Lawn against protesters—and only protesters. As a result, the offering ceremony took place on the spot where people were blocked.
The march began for many at Lafayette Park, but was joined by a second march to the White House from the Department of Justice. Once merged, the march headed back out and initially down Pennsylvania Avenue, the route most marches take when going from the White House to US Capitol. At 7th Street, marchers pulled a surprise left turn. It appeared the target would now be the 7th and H Street intersection at Chinatown, but protesters didn’t stay there long.  Soon the march headed east on H Street. From there the march went down the ramp to I-395 and blocked both sides of the road. It took quite a while for the police to reach the march. At least one police car went the wrong way back up the freeway. As police started building up, marchers withdrew, heading towards the Capitol after all.
 At the Capitol, a coffin was brought up as the march crossed the Capitol West Lawn, only to encounter a police barricade at top of the paved walkway on the south side of the Capitol lawn. Tourists walked freely behind the police lines, having entered by another route. The coffin, with a teddy bear in it for a 7-year-old murdered by police, was brought right up to the front line but police simply would not allow a remembrance for the fallen to take place on the Capitol steps. At that point marchers drew back a few feet and conducted the ceremony at the top South corner of the Capitol lawn.
 Tributes given included a teddy bear for 7 year old Aiyana Jones, cigarettes and a turn signal for Sandra Bland, Skittles for Trayvon Martin, a cross for those murdered in Charleston, and so many others. Near the end of the program one speaker warned “Get ready for war.”
By Grassroots DC, on August 7th, 2015 Cross-posted on behalf of the Stop Police Terror Project DC
 August 9th will mark one year since 18-year-old Mike Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Mike Brown’s death, and the subsequent non-indictment of the officer that killed him, resulted in a shockwave of marches, rallies, shut downs and die-ins all across the country. The recent deaths of Sandra Bland in Texas and Kindra Chapman Alabama, both at the hands of police, show the need to continue struggling against racist police terror and to show that we will not stand for the ongoing brutalization and killing of Black people in America. Join Stop Police Terror Project DC on Saturday, August 8th at the African American Civil Memorial to rally and march in the memory of Mike Brown and other victims of police killings past and present.
SHUT IT DOWN FOR MICHAEL BROWN!
Rally and March in Memory of Mike Brown
and other police terror victims.
August 8th, 2015, 7:00 p.m.
African American Civil War Memorial
DCFerguson, a group that’s done a great deal to confront police terror, has changed their name and expanded their mission. Learn more about the new organization Stop Police Terror Project DC below.
Formal statement on the dissolution of DCFerguson:
DCFerguson first emerged during a vital and spirited time in the burgeoning national anti-racist movement. The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York, and the subsequent non-indictment of the policemen that killed them galvanized the country, and after several successful actions, the organizers decided to form a coalition to address police terror locally. The organization was able to raise awareness about the jump-out squads and other militarized police tactics, collected testimonies of local police terror victims, and demanded that city funds being used to increase police presence on the street be redirected to community-led security efforts.
Recently, due to pressures created in part by our efforts, the Metropolitan Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Cathy Lanier, has shifted its tactics. The department will reorganize the seven individual vice units that are currently responsible for most of the recent misconduct, and create a central Narcotics and Special Investigation Division along with a Crime Interdiction Unit. Lanier claims these changes are a part of a shifting focus in the MPD from low level dealers to suppliers, along with a new focus on synthetic drugs, but we believe this is simply a cosmetic change being made to avoid changing the lethal tactics that lead to the death of people like Ralphael Briscoe and DeOnte Rawlings.
As they change and adapt, so do we, and as such, DCFerguson has decided to reorganize under a new name with new leadership. Ferguson brought us to where we are, but at this juncture so many tragic incidents nationally and locally have illuminated our understanding of these issues. As such we wanted our name to reflect that expanded reality.
The new organization, Stop Police Terror Project, D.C. (SPTP), will continue to function as an organization dedicated to ending racist militarized policing in our region. SPTP will continue to be structured as a set of volunteer committees who meet independently to complete tasks for the organization’s different projects. Everyone who was active on these committees in DCFerguson is encouraged to continue their work in SPTP as we intend to move forward with our plans as outlined in the last few months.
Since the state has reorganized itself in a fraudulent way for the problem to continue under a new guise, we intend to reorganize in a genuine way in order to put a stop to these abuses. So with a history rooted in addressing racist police tactics in a concrete way, SPTP will continue to expose the institutional violence perpetrated upon poor and working Blacks in the area, will continue to highlight the interconnectedness of forms of oppression related to police terror, and of course, will continue to be in the streets. The struggle continues.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Flowers
Sean Blackmon
Yasmina Mrabet
Eugene Puryear
By Grassroots DC, on June 19th, 2015 Cross-Posted from DC Independent Media Center
Written by Luke
 On the 16th of June, DC Ferguson returned to the streets and shut down Chinatown, demanding not only that Police Chief Lanier keep the de facto promise she just made to end jump-outs, but also an end to gentrifcation and homelessness. The 16th of June was the 39th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising a crucial event in the movement that ultimately ended Apartheid in South Africa.
A few days earlier, DC Police Chief Lanier said that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) would be switching focus from “low-level drug dealers” to major suppliers. According to the Washington Post report, the city’s vice squads are to be finally eliminated. Not once was the word “jump-out” used in any mainstream media story, but it is clear this is in response to growing pressure to end this tactic. When DC Ferguson began organizing against jump-outs, MPD first claimed to have discontinued the tactic during the 1990’s, then claimed only vice squads did anything like this. Now they say they will abolish the vice squads, but will the jump-outs really end or some other or renamed part of MPD continue business as usual?
Jump-outs are essentially when undercover cops swarm onto a block and attempt to intimidate every young Black male into submitting to an illegal search. Presumably MPD hopes to catch street corner drug dealers by searching everyone on the corner in this way. Jump-outs are seen in gentrification front-line areas and in Wards 7 and 8, which are African-American majority neighborhoods. Police deny they do this, yet everyone on some blocks I know well knows exactly what a jump-out is.
Since Lanier’s statement, FAUX (known by most as Fox) News has been running nonstop crime stories, along with interviews with masked cops complaining about the shift of focus. Faux is yakking every day about overdoses of a bad batch of “synthetic pot”-just after real pot has been legalized. Most likely FAUX has another agenda behind supporting jump-outs, a pro-gentrification one. This is in itself evidence that as protesters charge, jump-outs are about social control and racism, not about drugs at all.
By Grassroots DC, on June 15th, 2015 Posted on Behalf of DCFerguson
On June 16th 1976 twenty-thousand Black students took to the streets of South Africa to protest the imposition of the racist language Afrikaans in their schools. The event is remembered as the Soweto Student Uprising. Their protests were met with bullets by the Apartheid government killing hundreds of youth. Oppression, however, breeds resistance. The murders of those students jump-started the movement against Apartheid as thousands upon thousands of Black (and white) South Africans actively joined the struggle, swelling the ranks of the Liberation Movement.
Here in the United States we are in the midst of our own Youth uprising, from Ferguson to Baltimore Black youth have led the way and kicked off a powerful movement against racism, police murders and poverty.
On June 16th DCFerguson seeks to honor those who lost their lives in Soweto township in 1976, who gave everything to be liberated. Our uprising must turn into a liberation movement that uproots racist oppression. We will march to commemorate the lives of the lost martyrs in both struggles and in the memory that through struggle comes sacrifice but also victory. Join us on Tuesday June 16 as we continue to demand an end to racist militarized policing in D.C. and the entire United States!
This morning, Mayor Bowser and Chief Lanier announced that they will be “shifting” the strategies of the Metropolitan Police Department. They are backpedaling because of the pressure DCFerguson and their supporters have been able to bring together.
Her announcement is designed to create the appearance of being responsive to those who have called for changes to policing, without any substantive engagement. The Chief, clearly feeling the pressure from our exposure of the jump-out policy, is attempting to make it appear that jump-outs are ending by closing down the “vice units” that were often most responsible. However, there has been no indication that jump-outs themselves will be completely halted. Further, we have no actual way of knowing or measuring progress on this or other fronts while the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) continues their attempt to sidestep any comprehensive data collection.
The takeaway? That what we are doing is working. Clearly, the administration is looking for a way out. A way of calming down the community and hoping we will relax and stop paying close attention to the actions of police. We will not relax, and we will pay attention. Tomorrow, more than ever, we need to demonstrate to show that this movement isn’t going away until we have changed the racist, militarized policing strategies of the MPD, changed them permanently, and in a way that can be monitored and enforced. Period.
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